My name is Kirk Bruce. I am currently just turned 60, but when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, I was about 50 and a half. I live in Vancouver, Washington. I've lived here for quite a while. I'm an insurance agent here. I have my own agency. And I have a lovely wife, Laura, and my mom lives close by, and my brother. So not too much family close by, but we get together at the holidays and stuff.

Like I said, I was 50 years old and I hadn't been to the doctor for a while, just kind of not something that... My wife and I, we lead a pretty healthy lifestyle, so vitamins, exercise, everything like that. So I decided I'll just go get a checkup and everything will be fine. So, I got a checkup. I went to Kaiser. We had Kaiser at that time. I went there and they did blood tests, just the normal annual kind of checkup, and I got this notification from my doctor that said, "Hey, I need to talk to you about something." And I'm like, "Okay." So I went in, and he told me about how if I had had my PSA levels checked very much. And at that time I really didn't know much about PSA levels at all. I really wasn't confronted with it at all.

So he said, "Well, there's a concern there because your PSA levels, it's," I think it was like 6.2, which was, I guess, I mean, now that I know, that's really bad. So without me having any history of having it checked and monitored before, he referred me to the urologist, Dr. Thomas, who's amazing. So I went and talked to them and we monitored my PSA levels. I don't think they gave me any medication or anything like that. We just kind of monitored my PSA levels for about the next three or four months. That was in, I think, July of 2013.

And then we waited. I went and had it tested about every month. And then in, I think it was November or December, we decided to do a biopsy because things weren't coming down, nothing was changing, it was staying about the same and going up a little bit. So, the worst thing that ever happens is a biopsy for a prostate. I had that done the first time, and nothing there, no cancer, but we kept monitoring PSA. And it wasn't going down or staying about the same, so we did another biopsy. Actually, I think my PSA was going up. So we did another biopsy about January of 2014, January or February, and that came back with the diagnosis of just stage one cancer. So, very much contained, nothing outside of that that they knew about.

So when he told me that, it was like, "Oh my gosh." And my wife was there with me. And the first thing was, "Well, what's the treatment?"

"So it's either a surgery or I'll send you over to radiation and you can talk to them about it."

And I'm like, "Oh, no." I had no plan to do any radiation, so we decided to schedule the surgery. It was the robotic surgery, which is amazing. They can do that just about anywhere now. But we scheduled that. I had that surgery May 28th of 2014. And surgery went really well.

I think the worst thing about recovery is wearing the catheter for a little while. I had an appointment about a week or so, well, I think about a week, week and a half after that, to go in and have it taken out pretty much. And they called me the day of or day before the appointment to have that done to say, "Well, we need to delay your appointment because Dr. Thomas is busy." And I'm like, "No, that's not going to happen." So they got me in the next day, and that was fine, everything went well.

Then my wife this whole time was Googling, "What's going on? What's the side effects? What happens after the prostate's out?" And I think the biggest thing that she always talks about is, and I didn't know this, and she didn't know, is when you have sex, nothing comes out, basically, when you don't have your prostate. So she was like, "Oh, good. That's good for me." I know that's kind of getting a little more personal, but it's just something you just don't think about.

And then, my wife and I both, we run what's called the Hood to Coast Relay. It's a 195-mile relay from Mount Hood in Oregon to the coast. It's 12 people. So I was the team captain for that in August. So I had bridge surgery in May, and that was August 23rd or whatever that year, so I'm thinking, "Can I recover?" So I didn't start running or anything for a while after that, but I did, I recovered, I was able to run, and did that. And ever since then, I haven't had any issue. I think my PSA's not even registered almost on the scale still as of this day. I think it was 0.2 the last time I checked, something like that.

No side effects, but my advice is... Because I had no idea what PSA or anything like that was. So ever since then, it's like I called my brother right away, "Get tested," everybody. And every year or whatever, I promote that. I did the run this year, the 108 miles. And I just don't think people really think about it until something happens. I was lucky it was stage one, it was contained, nothing went outside of that. My doctor was amazing. He did a great job with surgery where none of the nerves were damaged or anything like that, but I know some other guys that didn't have that good of an experience and are dealing with that still today.

The biggest thing at first, and it tears me up today, it's, "Oh my gosh, I got cancer." And you think about that and, what do we do? It's either totally life-changing I think or you deal with it and it's not. It's scary. I had to go to my work and say, "I've got this. I've got to have this surgery." I think up until the day that it was taken out and months after that, you're relieved, but at the same time, cancer can come back. And my sister-in-law, she had her cancer come back after many years and had to have a full mastectomy. And she's a survivor, but I didn't want to have to have that happen, and luckily it didn't happen.

But when you find out you have cancer, like I said, it's so life-changing for so many people. And for me, it was a blessing that I went in when I did, and things are so much better today. But if I would've waited, I don't know, it would've gone to a higher stage I'm sure, we wouldn't have caught it early enough. I didn't think at age 50 it was really that big of a deal, but then, I think you've got... The thing that I learned the most is you've got to set a level. So you've got to maintain that monitoring of your PSA levels, which is one of the major things that they use. I think they're trying to come up with some other things. But without a track record, I had come in, the first time I really knew anything about my PSA, and I'm elevated to unnormal levels.

My advice would be just to get everybody to get tested as early as possible, and every year just monitor that, just a normal, annual review or annual physical pretty much.

I got some life insurance not too long ago, and they did a whole blood panel and everything on that. So it's kind of making sure that nothing's spread outside of there. And I haven't had any health issues since then. Oh, I take that back. I did have hernia surgery a few years ago, about five, six years. So, two surgeries in a relatively short period of time, but that was totally different. It's something that is always in the back of my mind, but as long as those levels stay there and there's nothing else really spread outside of there that we know of, I think it's just a matter of knowing what's going on in your body, I think, regularly.

I think the biggest thing, like I said, is just make sure you get tested [inaudible 00:09:51] and monitored, because you got to see what your levels are. And post, after that, because if it's... I was lucky. It was stage one. It was contained. But if the first time you go in and the same thing happens and it's at a stage four or five, whatever, you've got a totally different plan of attack, I think, on it. So I always push, "Make sure you get tested and monitor that," however it gets monitored, "And if there's some type of new test that comes out that it can be monitored better, participate in that."

And another thing, every guy's going to have some type of issue with their prostate at some time in life. That's one thing that I learned a lot from this too. I've got a client of mine, he's 90. What is he now, 92, I think? And he's just now having a lot of the effects of... He's 92 years old. And it's not cancerous, but he's going to the doctor, and getting up at night, and having to go pee all the time, and everything like that, and he's not that mobile. So, I don't know what his options are, but it's something that eventually every guy is going to have to deal with, and it either changes your life or it doesn't.